


Burdened with Purpose

by Alliance (Xazz)



Series: Cypress Hall [50]
Category: Flight Rising
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 13:23:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15120308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xazz/pseuds/Alliance





	Burdened with Purpose

She was dreaming. She knew she was dreaming because she stood on the Plateau. She hadn’t stood in the endless steppe in years. Above her the sky was huge and filled with perfect clouds that raced along, whipped up by the Crescendo that blew the wrong way out in the distance. She knew there was no way she should be able to see the Crescendo from here but it still dominated the southwestern horizon as a towering column of black and green clouds that flattered out at the top of the stratosphere like a great anvil.

[Layali](http://flightrising.com/main.php?p=lair&id=332919&tab=dragon&did=35135530) turned slowly. She didn’t want to be here. She’d run from this place for a reason. Dread started to drip down the back of her throat like poison.

When she faced the direction she’d originally been facing she jumped. It was the Windsinger. His massive coils gently undulated in the air, his body so long it flew out into the wind far beyond and was hard to see. He was as long as the wind and his glowing green eyes stared down at her. He was as still as he could be, softly blowing in the wind. She hunched, cowering before him.

“You’ve gone too far from me, my child,” he said and his voice was a whisper on the wind. She swallowed.

“It hurt,” she whispered weakly. Her eyes widened when all at once the Windsinger drew his great body forward and around and around to coil neatly on the ground. The _ground_. What sort of mad dream was this that the Windsinger would willingly put his body on the earth? He was a mountain before her and his mane was tugged by the wind like perfectly formed clouds. “I- I was afraid,” she said, looking up at him.

He lowered his great head to her. “Do you know why you’re afraid?” he asked her. She shook her head. “Because you were born with more knowledge than you should have.” She nodded a little. Wind Seers were _not_ common and her Sight was volatile and pained her. “Do you know what knowledge you were born with?”

“No?” she swallowed.

He raised a single claw and it was as large as she was in her birth form. He touched her head with more gentleness than she expected from the god of Wind who was as much a god of chaos as any original god. “Guardians are so useful you know. They always find their place in the world but they must find it. You were born _knowing_ your place and it is terrifying to know your place in the universe.” She nodded a little. “But why you fear is that you are not enough for the purpose you have been given, to hold the knowledge you’ve been given. A knowledge that is your Charge.”

“What is that?”

“A secret,” he leaned his head down and one of his eyes was the same size she was and looked, unblinking, into her. She shivered but did not shrink away from the gaze of the god that had made her. “To no longer be in fear you must accept it.”

“I do.”

He giggled. A god _giggled_. It was mind-boggling to realize that gods giggled. “You do not. You’re afraid. The knowledge pains you. You know your purpose but resist it so you must Search, just like any common Guardian.”

She hated the way he said that. “I am not common,” she said firmly and pushed his claw off her. “I am Wind born. I was born from you. I am anything but common.”

He giggled again. This time in delight. “Then prove it,” he said.

“How?”

“Know your purpose, discover your secret.”

“What is the secret?” she demanded.

He just grinned. “Ah, but that would be telling.”

“Windsinger!” she cried, furious all at once.

He laughed now. “I will make a bargain with you, little daughter of mine,” and he poked her around in the ribs playfully. She batted angrily at his claw. “Tell me my name and I’ll tell you your secret.”

“You’re the Windsinger,” she said.

“That’s what you call me, that is not my name,” his long face curled into a smirk.

Layali looked up at him hopelessly. “How am I supposed to find the name of a god?”

“Figure it out,” he tapped her on the head with his claw fondly. “Make your story.”

Layali’s eyes flared open. She was laying in her bed, breathing hard. Next to her, [Lianna](http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=35564542) was cooing worriedly. “Are you alright?” Lianna asked her nervously. “You had a vision. You wouldn’t wake.”

“I didn’t scream myself awake,” Layali said, staring up at the rings that made up her tree home.

“No. Not this time. You didn’t scream. You cried out once which woke me up but you didn’t scream.”

“The Windsinger came to me in my dreams,” Layali whispered.

“He did?”

“I think he did. I know why I have nightmares now. I know what I’m for.”

“What’s that mean?” Lianna frowned and curled her wing around Layali.

Layali sat up. “I need to go on my Search,” she said.

“What? But Layali if you leave you’ll get hurt,” Lianna said.

“My Search will end my suffering,” Layali said. “It will lead me to my purpose.”

“What is that?”

“I don’t know yet. But I know where to start.”

Lianna’s antenna wiggled a bit. She knew the Skydancer was trying to reach out to her empathetically but it never reached Layali. “Okay? Where?”

“I need to find the name of that smug asshole the Windsinger.”


End file.
